GeForce 304.48 beta drivers boost performance

Folks with GeForce graphics cards get a treat today. Nvidia has posted a fresh batch of beta drivers, version 304.48, which usher in some performance improvements, a few bug fixes, and other miscellaneous goodies. You can grab the drivers right here on GeForce.com, and you can peruse Nvidia's blog post highlighting the changes here.

The company quotes the following performance gains compared to the current stable drivers (version 301.42 WHQL):

GeForce GTX 680:

Up to 18% in Batman: Arkham City

Up to 15% in Dragon Age II

Up to 10% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Up to 60% in Total War: Shogun 2 (fixes performance issue with latest game patch)

GeForce GTX 560:

Up to 14% in Batman: Arkham City

Up to 5% in Battlefield 3 with SLI

Up to 4% in Dragon Age II

Up to 8% in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings with SLI

Up to 7% in Lost Planet 2

Those gains are substantial, but Nvidia doesn't mention any for other cards. The company also says it's squashed several bugs: one that caused "intermittent vsync stuttering" with 600-series GeForces, another that led some cards with higher-than-stock clocks to run slower than intended, and a third that caused poor performance in Total War 2: Shogun—hence the humongous 60% increase reported above.

On top of that, the Nvidia Control Panel should now let users enable ambient occlusion in Star Wars: The Old Republic and multisampled antialiasing in Diablo III, L.A. Noire, Rayman Origins, and The Secret World. Nvidia has added SLI and 3D Vision profiles for a wealth of games, as well, including unreleased titles like Borderlands 2. You can check out the full profile list either here or in the release notes on the driver download page.